Nissan's Sproule: Not Exiting Full-Size Truck Market

Despite Low Sales of Current Titan, Company Committed to Segment

With Nissan's Titan full-size truck going on a full decade without any major changes or redesigns, and the sales figures to show for it, the company is not ready to pull the plug on the potentially lucrative market niche. This stance reiterated by Nissan vice president of global marketing Simon Sproule, who was adamant with Motor Trend's Ed Loh that the company is not abandoning the market segment.

Nissan North America chief of product planning Pierre Loing stated strongly in February that the company was leaving "nothing off the table" in the development of the next-generation Titan, and that the truck would have a much broader variety of configurations and powertrains than the current model.

Sproule pointed out that the full-size segment represents 1.7 million sales a year, a figure larger than the entire new vehicle market in the U.K., and said not having an entry in that segment is "just not acceptable" for the company.

Nissan's commitment to the full-size market was further validated by the company announcing last week the hiring of Fred Diaz from Chrysler's Ram division to serve as vice president of Nissan's North American sales and marketing . The Ram brand has had meteoric growth over the past 12 months, a performance that likely caught the eye of Nissan senior management.

With just over 20,000 in sales in 2012, the Titan has a long way to go to catch Ford's mammoth F-Series sales volume of more than 600,000 units, but with Ram going from a distant fourth to a consistent top-three player in just a few years, a turnaround for the Titan might not be far away.